Joseph Haydn was as prolific as any eighteenth century composer, his
fecundity a matter, in good pan, of the nature of his employment and the length
of his life. Born in 1732 in the village of Rohrau, the son of a wheelwright,
he was recruited to the choir of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna at the age
of eight, later earning a living as best he could as a musician in the capital
and making useful acquaintances through his association with Metastasio, the
Court Poet, and the composer Nicola Porpora.

In 1759, after same eight years of teaching and free-lance performance,
whether as violinist or keyboard-player, Haydn found greater security in a
position in the household of Count Morzin as director of music, wintering in
Vienna and spending the summer on the Count's estate in Bohemia, where an
orchestra was available. In 1760 Haydn married the eldest daughter of a
wigmaker, a match that was to bring him no great solace, and by the following
year he had entered the service of Prince Paul Anton Esterházy as deputy to the
old Kapellmeister Gregor Werner, who had much fault to find with his young
colleague. In 1762 Prince Paul Anton died and was succeeded by his brother
Prince Nikolaus, who concerned himself with the building of the great palace of
Esterh8za. In 1766 Werner died, and Haydn assumed the full duties of
Kapellmeister, spending the larger part of the year at Esterháza and part of
the winter at Eisenstadt, where his first years of service to the Esterházy
family had passed.

Haydn's responsibilities at Esterháza were manifold. as Kapellmeister
he was in full charge of the musicians employed by the Prince, writing music of
all kinds, and directing performances both instrumental and operatic. This busy
if isolated career came to an end with the death of Prince Nikolaus in 1790.
From then onwards Haydn had greater freedom, while continuing to enjoy the title
and emoluments of his position as Kapellmeister to the Prince's successors.

Haydn's release from his immediate responsibilities allowed him, in
1791 , to accept an invitation to visit London, where he provided music for the
concerts organised by Johann Peter Salomon. His considerable success led to a
second visit in 1794. The following year, at the request of the new Prince
Esterházy, who had succeeded his eider brother in 1794, he resumed same of his
earlier duties as Kapellmeister, now in Eisenstadt and in Vienna, where he took
up his own residence until his death in 1809.

The first visit to England began on New Year's Day, 1791, the event
celebrated in undistinguished English verse in the popular press. Salomon had
arranged a series of twelve subscription concerts, to be held in the Hanover
Square Rooms, the first of which took place, after various postponements, on
11th March, and included a new Grand Overture by Haydn, probably the Symphony
No.96, which was certainly played during the earlier part of the season. Its
nickname, The Miracle, came about, it is said, because of the miraculous escape
of a number of members of the audience who moved forward to see Haydn when he
appeared, thus avoiding being crushed by a falling chandelier.

The first movement opens, as do most of the London symphonies, with a
slow introduction, the solo oboe leading to the Allegro, in which the first
violin proposes the principal theme, followed by a subsidiary theme in which
the woodwind instruments at first answer the first violin. The development
seems to end with a sudden pause, but what follows is in another key, leading
eventually to the recapitulation proper. The G Major slow movement allows the
wind instruments a gradually increasing share, after the announcement of the
principal theme by the first violin. There is a Minor middle section, before
the return of the main theme, with scoring for two solo violins. The Minuet
calls for the full orchestra, with its flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns, trumpets
and drums, while the companion Trio is dominated by the solo oboe. The finale
is opened by the strings with the principal theme, a lively and delicate rondo,
that includes an excursion into the Minor, with the same theme, and a
contrapuntal development of the material.

In 1794 Haydn set out on his second visit to London and in February
Salomon's subscription season began in the Hanover Square Rooms. Six new
symphonies had been commissioned, and of these Symphony No.100 in G major was
played at the eighth concert, on 31st March, in a programme that included the
performance of a new Haydn quartet and a concerto composed and played by the
violinist Viotti. The Grand Military Overture, as the new work was described,
starts with a slow introduction, thematically connected with w hat follows. The
Allegro is opened by the flutes and oboes, followed by the strings, a procedure
that also marks the second subject, later to be imitated in military style by
Johann Strauss. The C Major second movement, marked Allegretto, includes a military
battery of kettledrums, triangle, cymbals and bass drum in its scoring, as well
as allowing the wind band a proper share of the music. The Minuet is relatively
slow, with a touch of the ominous in the G Minor bars of the Trio. The symphony
ends with a rondo, the main theme of which quickly became widely popular in
England, where it was to serve its purpose in the ball-room. Towards the end of
the finale the military percussion is again used, to the disapproval of one
contemporary critic, but nevertheless providing an additional unity to the
work.

Sixteen years earlier, in 1778, Mozart, during the course of his
unhappy visit to Paris, had obliged the public with a work suited to the larger
orchestra of the French capital, bigger even than the relatively large
orchestra that Salomon assembled from underpaid musicians for his London
concerts. Haydn enjoyed considerable esteem in Paris, and in 1785, in response
to a commission from the young Comte d'Ogny, he provided a set of six Paris
symphonies, designed for the larger orchestra available there. At the palace of
Esterháza Haydn had a small band, with less than a dozen string players: the
concerts of the masonic Loge Olympique, for which he wrote his new symphonies,
could master forty violins and ten basses.

Symphony No.82 in C Major, the first of the set, was written in 1786,
one of a second group of three in order of composition. All seem to have been
played for the first time during the 1787 concert season, when they were
enthusiastically received. No.85 appealed particularly to Queen Marie
Antoinette, and was thereafter known as La Reine, while No.83 became known as
La poule, a reference to the clucking of a first movement melody rather than to
any lady of the French court. No.82 won the nickname L'Ours, The Bear, from the
bagpipe bear-dance that opens its last movement.

The symphony provides a fine opportunity for the premier coup d'archet,
the unanimous attack at the beginning of a work, a feature on which French
orchestras prided themselves and that Mozart had found unexceptional. The
gentler second subject of the first movement follows relatively startling
discords. The slow movement, not a particularly slow one, offers two themes,
the first in F Major, the second, a related one, in F Minor. These elements are
repeated with variations, with a final repetition of an even more varied
version of the first theme, followed by a coda. The French-style Menuet and its
contrasting Trio leads to the famous finale, with its opening bagpipe drone
from the cellos and double basses, and bear-dance violin melody, elements that
dominate the rest of a remarkable movement.

Capella Istropolitana
The Capella Istropolitana was founded in 1983 by members of the Slovak
Philharmonic Orchestra, at first as a chamber orchestra and then as an
orchestra large enough to tackle the standard classical repertoire. Based in
Bratislava, its name drawn from the ancient name still preserved in the
Academia Istropolitana, the historic university established in the Slovak and
one-time Hungarian capital by Matthias Corvinus, the orchestra works
principally in the recording studio. Other recordings by the orchestra in the
Naxos series include The Best of Baroque Music, Bach's Brandenburg Concertos,
fifteen of Mozart's symphonies as well as works by Handel, Vivaldi and
Telemann.

Barry Wordsworth
Barry Wordsworth's career has been dominated by his work for the Royal
Ballet which started when he played the solo part in Frank Martin's Harpsichord
Concerto, which was the score used by Sir Kenneth MacMillan for his ballet, Las
Hermanas. In 1973 he became Assistant Conductor of the Royal Ballet's Touring
Orchestra and in 1974 Principal Conductor of Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet. He
made his debut at Covent Garden conducting MacMillan's Manon in 1975 and since
then has conducted there frequently. He has toured extensively with the Royal
Ballet, conducting orchestras in New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea,
Canada and Australia, where he has been guest conductor for Australian Ballet.

In 1987 while retaining his connection with both Royal Ballet Companies
as guest conductor, Barry Wordsworth also worked with the Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, the Ulster
Orchestra, the BBC Concert and the London Philharmonic Orchestras. He also
continued to work with New Sadlers Wells Opera, with whom he has recently
recorded excerpts from Kalman's Countess Maritza and Lehar's The Count of
Luxembourg and The Merry Widow .He has also recorded for the Naxos label (Smetana:
Moldau & The Bartered Bride/Dvorak: Slavonic Dances) and for the Marco Polo
label (Bax: Sinfonietta; Overture, Elegy & Rondo).